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UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

DARIUS O. NEWELL, OF YONKERS, NEW YORK.

GROUND SHAVINGS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 232,840, dated October 5, 1880. Application filed September 4, 1878.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, DARIUS O. NEWELL, of Yonkers, in the county of Westchester and State of New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Grinding Shavings and Chips of Wood, by which I have produced a new article of manufacture, that may properly be termed ground shavings, of which the following is aspecification.

The said invention relates to the shavings and chips that are made by planing-mills, molding machines, and other wood-workin g machinery, and which have hitherto been of less value than the fine sawdust that is made by sawing machinery.

The object of the said invention is to reduce the shavings and chips to a condition approximating that of sawdust; and it is accomplished by machinery that not only cuts and tears the fragments of wood into comparatively small pieces, but the grindingaction of which may be regulated to disintegrate the small fragments, and to impart to them a more spongy character than that the material originally possessed. The ground product thus obtained is more absorben t than the shavings and chips from which it is made, and it may be more closely packed.

To enable others skilled in the arts to which it appertains to make and use my invention, I will proceed to describe the construction and operation of the mill of my invention by which ordinary shavings and chips of wood may be easily ground, and for which Letters Patent N 0. 196,100 were issued to me on the 16th day of October, 187 7 and referring to the same for a more detailed description thereof.

The material to be ground is delivered from a hopper to two revolving iron rollers, that are made with annular ridges that are placed with the projecting angles of each roller fitting into the recesses of the other. The space between the rollers determines the size of the material that passes between them. One of the rollers is driven with a speed much greater than that 4 5 of the other, and it is provided with teeth on the ridges that face downward to carry the material through the mill, while the similar teeth of the more slowly moving roller face upward to hold it back and to keep it from passing too quickly between the rollers. The difference in the speeds of the two ro'llers-one holding the material back and the other drawing it on-cuts and tears and grinds the material that may be passing through the mill, and carries it through with the speed, at least, of the more slowly revolving roller, by the teeth of which itmay be caught.

The product may be sifted and the coarser portion returned to the mill, if necessary, to be again ground.

When such a mill is employed in the reduction of shavings and chips of wood a shaving, for instance, is first caught by the teeth of one roller, then presented to the projecting angular ridges and teeth of the other, by which it is broken, out, and torn, and it is then finally rolled and squeezed and ground together with a constant] y-increasin g force until it has passed between the opposing surfaces of the rollers at their points of nearest contact. The result of this action on shavings and chips of wood is not to grind them to fine flour or powder, but to reduce them to the size of sawdust by cutting and tearing, and to then crush and grind them to a spongy condition.

By this process the product is neither an impalpable pulp nor a mass of uncrushed particles, but it is something of the nature of that made by the use of saws, with the valuable qualities, in addition, of being fibrous and much more absorbent.

I claim As a new article of manufacture, the shavings or chips of wood that have been cut or torn and crushed or ground by any process, substantially as described.

DARIUS O. NEWELL.

Witnesses:

H. J. OHAPIN, WM. KEMBLE HALL. 

